Announcing our first 2024 book: Gathering!

Durre Shahwar

Excited to share the news that we will be publishing Gathering, an essay anthology of nature writing by women of colour from across the UK. The collection, edited by Durre Shahwar and Nasia Sarwar-Skuse, considers nature, landscape and the climate, and will be published in early 2024.

The idea began when Durre undertook a Located Residency with National Theatre Wales to explore what the Welsh landscape meant to her as a South Asian woman, and the ways in which it can be a site for identity and home making beyond predetermined markers of ‘Welshness’, and grew from there.

Nasia Sarwar-Skuse

Essays will explore intersections of nature writing, considering topics including neurodiversity, capitalism, mental health, academia, music, colonialism, religion, cancer and recovery, immigrant experience and more from contributors such as filmmaker Kandace Siobhan Walker, Edwin Morgan Poetry Award-winner Alycia Pirmohamed, Burnt Roti-founder Sharan Dhaliwal, Nadia Javed, member of band The Tuts.

“The personal essay is the perfect form to challenge and celebrate nature writing through different perspectives and I’m excited to broaden that conversation with other women of colour through this anthology,” says Durre. “It was important for us to publish Gathering with a publisher that understands the nuances and intersections of this book, and I am confident that it is in good hands with 404 Ink.”

The collection, pitched with a strong and significant line-up of contributors already in place, is partially funded by Books Council of Wales (Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru), and will see the editors and publisher work together to add more writers to the line-up in the coming year.

“Anthologies are what kickstarted 404 Ink into being and after a brief break, it's great to be returning to the format in 2024 with Gathering,” says Laura. “It's well known that nature writing has a very white, very male legacy and we're happy to be supporting Durre and Nasia to correct this balance by putting women of colour in the forefront of this discussion of nature, one of humanity's most universal yet individual shared experiences.”

Gathering is set to be “personal, moving, convincing, creative, fierce and everything in between” and a welcome addition to the growing and vibrant expansion of nature writing being published and we cannot wait to share it with you all.